


Hunted

by EtcheStone



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtcheStone/pseuds/EtcheStone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chiron Zahhak is in training to become an Archeradicator, which means that he has to work and train constantly with the Carnival and its leader. Some sessions are more terrifying than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunted

You are being hunted. 

You know it. They know it. Their lord certainly knows it. They're hunting you, the lot of them. 

Your name is Chiron Zahhak. You are fifty sweeps old, but not yet past your adult molt, that would take ten more sweeps or so. In human terms, you are the biological equivalent of nineteen years.

Not that you know what a human is or what kind of measure of time they use. 

You're crouched behind the cover that several fallen trees give you, trees that belong to the forest surrounding the stone castle where the purple bloods of the Carnival make their home. You have nothing but your wits, which you don't think very much of, your bow, and the six arrows you've been allowed stored in a quiver that hangs around your waist.

You're well into the clown's territory, well away from the shore of the ocean that drops off from the crags to the northeast of the castle -not as if you can even swim all that well- and well away from any borders that they hold around their land. No one's going to come and help you, come running to your rescue. You have to help yourself. That's the whole point of this. 

Your breath comes in short pants through your halfway open mouth. You're trying to be quiet about it, really you are, but you just can't bear the noise. It's too loud. Every small shift of your position sounds like a crash of thunder, and every time you breath it sounds like wind running through hollowed out rocks. 

There's too much noise. You're going to be heard. They'll hear you and they'll find you and it'll be the end of you. 

Swear rolls down the back of your neck, making your long hair stick to the skin there. It itches, but you can't scratch it. You can't move. Moving would be the death of you. It would stir the air and cast the shadows differently, give scores of tiny messages just screaming for the clowns after you to come and pluck you from the ground and string you up somewhere for the crows to peck out your eyes. 

You know that they're still hunting you. You would have been able to hear it if they'd called off the hunt, would've been able to hear the scraping click-hiss-chirp of their dialect going through the trees from clown to clown as each passed on the message. 

Of course, you're not clever enough to get away from them very quickly. You've only been in the woods for an hour, maybe a little more. You haven't even run into any of them yet, just heard them. You've not gotten away. You'll likely never be able to get away from them, not completely. Not from  _him_. Their lord. You've failed to do so yet. 

You're not like the clowns, you haven't been bred and raised to be clever and fast, you were born to be burly and big and strong. You are strong. Plenty strong. Not stronger than them, of course. You would never be so arrogant to compare yourself with the purple blood's strength. They are your highers. All of them. Even the ones that spend their time guzzling faygo. 

But, still, you are strong enough that if you were to ever get a grip on one of them, you'd be able to injure them badly, perhaps even incapacitate them. This you are almost certain of, but not completely. You've never been able to get a grip like that. They're too slippery.

You inhale quietly, expand your lungs and your stomach, and let out the breath as slow as possible, near silently. You swallow then, and almost choke on saliva when you hear something scrape against tree bark for half a moment. 

Terror threatens to overwhelm you, and your sweating picks up. Droplets roll down the sides of your neck and dot your brow. You stop breathing and pray to any god that hears you that they can't smell your sweat, or your fear. They probably can, but you can hope all you want that they can't.

For many heartbeats there's only silence but you don't dare to move. You keep your eyes wide open, don't dare to close them for fear of opening them and having a wild, painted face directly in front of you. You don't move. Your lungs ache. 

For a moment you dare to think that it was just some animal shifting about in the brush. You close your eyes slowly, only for a moment, and inhale, and then you hear the scraping again. Your eyes fly open and you squeeze onto the grip of your bow, hard enough to have something to hold onto but not hard enough that it creaks, not enough to break it. 

You can hear the soft, light falls of footsteps against the grass and moss of the forest floor, and you know that it's not your imagination, it  _is_ getting closer. If you wait any longer than a few more moments, you'll just be a sitting duck, they'll be too close for you to flee before they grab onto you and bring you down. 

Slowly, so slowly that it's like you're hardly moving at all, you start to reach down for a stone that's lying on the ground. It's got something odd carved into it, looking to be someone's bloodline insignia. You've heard of how those in the carnival bury their dead and line the graves with stones with the fallen one's sign. It's preposterous, really. Bodies are supposed to be burned. If they're not, then they'll turn into daywalkers. 

You're sure that by taking the stone you'll be disturbing something sacred to the Carnival, something that they'll surely punish you for. You consider this for a moment and then slowly withdraw your hand, reaching for a dead branch instead.

You grip onto the branch and lift your arm back up just as slowly as you had reached for it. You pause for a moment and then toss it. It sails, spinning, and hits a bush from which bright white berries hang, rustling the branches together. A single bird flies up out of the bush, screaming an alarm call as it disappears into the trees. 

You hold yourself still and stop breathing again as you listen to the sharp clicking of your hunters and the way their feet scrabble against the mossy ground for a hold as they dart towards the sound. 

 Once they're gone and you can't hear them any longer, you ease out a breath and then suck one back in instantly, forgetting to be quiet. Your inhale gasps inwards sharply, rasping against your throat, and you internally kick yourself in the stomach. There's another scrape, right by your ear, right at the side of your head. Your ears flare and then twitch backwards towards the sound and your breath catches in your throat. 

"Boo."

His voice is right in your ear,  _right_ in your ear. So close that you're surprised his teeth don't snag against the soft cartilage of your ear. 

You don't even look, you can't allow yourself to look or even to flinch. You just lurch forward, stumbling to your feet and nearly falling as you start to run as fast and as hard as you can away from him. 

You can hear the ones you distracted being drawn away by the ruckus you make as you run deeper into the forest. You can hear him laughing, a deep, rich sound that bubbles up from the bottom of his chest and gets louder as it goes on. You've heard him laugh before, and it sends chills down into your bones. If the situation had been different, you would have found the sound something other terrifying. 

 You just run. You run and you try so hard to keep your feet under you so you don't fall forward even though you're leaning too far forward, you know that you are, you're going too fast. You can hear their clicking, chirping, hissing, laughing, gleeful damned voices. You can hear the tree branches bend and creak as they run along them. You can hear the heavy footfalls as they run after you and you don't even have to look back over your shoulder to know that they're running after you like a bunch of animals in a pack running after prey. 

There's no way you can escape. They're going to catch up to you and skin you alive, drag you back to their Lord so he can kill you himself. 

You pull an arrow out of our quiver and clumsily set it against the string of your bow. You strain your ears for a moment, continue to run, and then twist your torso up to fire an arrow into the trees. Above the clamor of your footsteps and your hunters, you hear a ragged and pained sound, then a heavy thud as someone hits the ground. You've hit, and you have five arrows left for who knows how many more. 

You keep running. Your quiver bangs against your thigh with every stride.

You're slowing down, your stamina running out. You haven't been training yourself to have stamina to just run forever, you've trained your body to be strong and accurate, not fast. You're still young. You'll get better, surely, but right now you're not good enough. 

You hear one getting closer to you, hear their breathing rasping in warm puffs against your back. You wait a heartbeat longer and then twist again, firing another arrow. The clown behind you skids to a stop and howls, stopping their chase. Four arrows. You're sure that having one of their own harmed is making the others angry, and you're sure it's only going to make your situation worse. You're royally fucked. 

You're taking another arrow from your quiver just as one of them drops onto you from above in the trees, snarling rage and triumph. Their weight lands onto you heavy and you screech out a harsh sound of panic, twisting under their weight as you fall to the ground. The arrow goes flying and your bow skids a few feet away. You swipe out with your hands, trying to grab onto something, anything, to pull and use as leverage to swing the clown off of you. You get a glimpse of a paint face and wild purple eyes, an open mouth full of teeth ready to sink into your skin. 

A hand tangles into your hair and slams the side of your head into the ground. Pain explodes in your temples and your vision clouds with black. You struggle anyway, writhing beneath the weight of the clown. Clawed hands dig and gouge into the padded leather of the armor you wear, into your shoulders. It hurts and stings but you know you're not bleeding. Thank the gods you're not bleeding. Blood just makes them all wilder. 

You heave upwards, try to shake free the hold the clown has on you. You thank the gods that it's not their lord. He would be talking to you, cooing, playing with your mind and making it turn against you. You heave up again, bucking against the clown. You can feel their hold slip and you take the chance, twisting around and rolling to your side. You crutch a knee upwards and feel it dig into something soft, presumably their stomach. 

The clown wheezes in pain and lets go. You wiggle out from under them, shoving at their chest and shoulders, scrambling away and starting to get to your feet. You're almost to your feet, almost away, and then you're caught again, something tugs on you and keeps you from going forward, the belt of your quiver digs into your stomach.

You look back, and kick yourself internally. You're not supposed to look back, never,  _never_ , look back, but you do, and you see that the clown has a grip on your quiver. You lurch, growl down at them, and they still hold. You can hear the others coming closer. You don't have the time to be held up. You can hardly focus, hardly breath, you just have to get away before they're all around you and there's no chance of escape. 

You kick at them, they hold, and you kick again, catching the side of their head with your heel, then heave forwards. They scream in pain but still hold and the fabric of your quiver tears. The belt breaks and you're free. You run. 

You keep running and they chase you for another moment, and then the sounds of their chase fades. They drop back, but you don't stop, don't allow yourself to rest. You just keep running. 

You don't even realize how fast or how long you've been running until you see the river that runs down from the mountains east of the castle of the purples, then runs through their lands before going into the ocean. You slow to a trot and then stop completely at the riverbed, panting. Your legs and your lungs ache, your legs are burning with complaint. If you carry on how you've been, then you'll collapse sooner or later, and they'll be on you in instants. 

The water would wash away your scent, but you're not strong enough to swim across. You can't keep going. The river would hide you as long as you were able to stay in it. 

You take a few steps back from the river and then take a running start to it, plunging into it with a splash that you hope doesn't draw attention. The water is cold and it pierces the leather you wear, clogs into your ears and your nose. You spit out a few bubbles of air and then lock up your lungs, kicking to the bottom. 

You squeeze your eyes shut so mud and silt won't get into them, and dig your hands into the freezing mud at the bottom of the river, trying to get a hold so the current won't take you away. 

Mud and dirt find their way uncomfortably under your nails and your fingers catch into a tree root lodged in the mud. You're alright, even if you are wet and freezing, you're alright. They won't be able to know where you've gone. It'll be harder for them to track you without scent. 

You stay in the river, in the freezing water. Nothing jumps in after you. They must have assumed you doubled back in the woods. That might have been a smart thing to do if you had been able to think of it before you'd jumped into the river. 

You wait. You hold onto the mud and tree root and feel the water rush by you, pull at your body. The air in your lungs turns stale, it makes you ache. Your vision starts to spot behind your eyelids, sharp bursts of light swimming in the black of your vision. Your thoughts blur together, you just have to  breath, you  _have_ to get fresh air, you can't hold on any longer. 

You count to ten, then let go and kick off from the bottom, breaking the surface of the water with the loudest gasp for air you've ever sucked in. You push out the sick, stale air, and suck in the fresh and the new. It tastes like heaven. Your head starts to clear as you grapple at the shore of the river, grabbing onto the grass and hauling yourself up from the water. 

You cough as you suck in another breath, collapsing into the grass on your side, continuing to cough. Water streams off of your thick hair and out of the leather of your clothes. You lay on the ground, hacking, and try to calm yourself down. You're staying too long, you know, you should have gone on already, you don't know for sure if they even passed you. They could just be waiting in the trees, watching you try to recover your strength. 

After another moment of fighting your your breath, you start to stagger to your feet. You tip over, catch yourself on the grass with your hands, and push back up, managing to catch your balance that time. You look to the trees and see that they are, in fact, bare. There are no clowns perched in them, waiting to pounce upon you. Thankfully. 

You look again to the river, panting, still dripping with water. You have to reach the edge of their land and get off their territory. Then they'll leave you alone, then you'll have won. You look up at the moons; the smaller green one nearly in its new phase, and the pink one half full. You look to your left, down the river. Your best bet was west of the river, if you went west then you would reach the edge of their land. 

You turn away from the river, back to the trees to head in that direction, and you barely manage to glimpse the beast bounding towards you from the wood before he hits you and you're sprawled on the ground on your back, staring again up at the moons in shock. Then the painted face of Grand Highblood Makara blocks them out. 

He looms over you, his wild mane of hair framing the mask of a face and deep purple eyes. You make an attempt to scream, part your lips, but your voice just clogs up in your throat like a stopper. His face twists, his paint breaks, and morphs into a smirk that bares far too many teeth for your liking. He smirks down at you and tilts his head to the side, the shadows of his horns crossing over your countenance. 

You remember what you're there to do, that you're supposed to be escaping, and heave upwards. You swing a fist towards his face, forgetting for a moment that this is your direct officer, and he jerks an arm upwards, catching your fist against his vambrace. The hard iron slams into your knuckles and breaks the skin of them, blue blood running in streams down between your fingers and the back of your hand. 

The Highblood's nostrils flare as you bleed and he tips himself forwards, bringing his face closer to yours, inhaling your scent. You gasp and try to recoil, but there's nowhere to draw back to, but you do draw back your hand, whimpering out a sound of pain and clutching at your bleeding knuckles. You take a millisecond too long to nurse your pain and rub your knuckles, because then his hand is around your throat and squeezing. 

His fingers press into the sides of your neck, his skin is so cold, and your head starts to heat up as air is taken from you. You can feel how much harder it is to breathe, how much harder it is to fill up your lungs. Your mouth flaps uselessly for a few moments and you grasp at his wrists, squeezing onto him and the vambraces that encircle his forearms, trying to pry his hands off. 

Your mind is too shambled to focus and his presence only makes it worse, his thick scent and his face, just knowing his rank in the world and that he's  _touching_ you makes you shudder and want to mewl. The heel of his palm presses down on the front of your throat and your windpipe creaks in protect, it hurts, it feels like he's about to break something and you worry that he is. 

You open your mouth to beg and plead for him to spare your life and let you go but even if you could find the breath to speak, you can't  _function_ , you can't look away from his eyes where they're boring into you like how a beast looks into the eyes of the prey he's about to kill.  _  
_

Sweat slips down the bridge of your nose and your pusher is hammering a million miles a minute, so hard and so fast that you're afraid you'll break something in it. The Highblood bares his teeth down at you in another smirk, this one closer to the look of a snarl, and lifts one of his hands from your throat to wrap his fingers around the base of an arrowheaded horn. He squeezes onto the horn and you choke out a strangled sound, dragging the heels of your boots across the dirt and you squirm weakly under his weight. His nails grate over the keratin of your horns and it hurts, it feels like nails grating over a chalkboard. 

Panic build up in the back of your throat and it tastes like bile and overwhelming amounts of fear and desperation. You beg him silently to please not kill you and you hope he can hear you even when it's just inside your head. 

"Snap."

He lets go of you suddenly, drawing both hands back. You gasp in a breath and let go of his wrists, flying your hands to your own throat to rub and choke on air. He waits patiently above you, balances his weight on the balls of his feet and rocks back and forth slowly. He watches your face fade slowly back to gray from the blue that it had gone when he'd taken your air. He waits until your breathing has evened out to speak in his deep, rich voice. 

"You hesitated."

You nod, cough once, and nod again. 

"Y-yes, my lord."

"You didn't think before you came up."

You couldn't have. You didn't have the air or the energy to think properly. You stayed under too long. 

"Yes, my lord."

"You were too slow in getting away from Gilkri."

You assume he's speaking of the clown that had grabbed onto your quiver. You _were_ too slow. Far too slow. You should have just unbuckled the damn belt instead of wasting time tugging at it. 

"Yes, my lord."

"The river was a clever idea."

"Yes, my-"

What?

You shut down and just stare up to him. He smiles at you, bares his teeth, makes you shiver, and then he stands up, towering upwards over you, big, bigger than anything and anyone, his horns curling and arching upwards to scrape at the stars. 

"You think quickly, but you just don't think right most of the time. Work on that."

You nod quickly, probably too quick so you appear more enthusiastic than you mean to to have his praise. You  _are_ very enthusiastic, but you didn't want him knowing that. But, you keep nodding like an idiot. His praise warms you up from the bottom of your stomach. 

"And try not to fire those arrows of yours at heads. It doesn't matter how dull you make them, or even if you just take off the heads, you can still take out an eye, like you almost did to Heflim."

You're still nodding. 

"Well, get up then."

You stop nodding and realize that you're still on the ground. You scramble to your feet, nearly tipping over as you do. The Highblood smiles at you, really smiles, he doesn't bare his teeth or give the barest trace of a sneer or growl, just smiles. You stare, mesmerized, and take in the sight, branding it to your memory because you're sure you're never going to see it again while he's grown like this. 

"You did well, Zahhak."

You look away from his face, taking the barest moment to wonder why he didn't hiss or slap at you for staring so openly at his face. You nod.

"You can have a night to rest tomorrow."

You nod again. 

"Come, then. Let us go back hive."

You nod again. Why can't you just talk when you're around him, why do you have to keep nodding like a dumb fool? 

"Ali picked up your bow when you dropped it. He'll be bringing it back, and your quiver. I'll have him bring them back to your block."

Thank the gods. The last time you'd lost your quiver, they'd left it out in the woods and it had taken hours for you to find it. It's not like the arrows are much good, they're dulled, like the Highblood said, but you like the quiver and you made the arrows yourself. You make all the arrows yourself. You pride yourself on it. 

You turn back in the direction of the castle, and jump as the Highblood wraps one of his long, lankly arms around your shoulders. He gives you a small squeeze, pulling you closer to his chilled body, and you slowly lean onto the hard muscle that makes up his tall body. 

He begins to lead you to the treeline, keeping his arm around you even though you're still wet and soaked through. You'll spend the free night you have tomorrow making something for him, you think. Some small mechanical beast. You've done it before, and he appeared to like them.

That's what you'll do. In return, you might get a pat on the head or a hand through your hair. You hope so. 

 


End file.
